USS Defiant (2370)
Affiliation: Federation Starfleet Class: Defiant Launched: Stardate 47538.5 (2370) Status: Destroyed (Stardate 52609.1) (2375) The USS Defiant (NX-74205) was the second starship to bear the name, and the prototype of the ''Defiant'' class of starships. The Defiant had been first designed in 2366, as a new ship to fight the threat of the Borg. The ship had been built but the receding Borg threat, numerous flaws and the fact that it almost tore itself apart during test cruises, convinced Starfleet to put the project on hold. Benjamin Sisko became involved in the project after transfering to the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards after the destruction of the ''Saratoga'' at Wolf 359. The Defiant was taken out of storage and assigned to Deep Space 9 in early 2371 to protect the station from the threat of the Dominion, who had destroyed the USS Odyssey, a Galaxy class starship, a few weeks before. The ship was granted special dispensation to install and operate a cloaking device contributed by the Romulans. In 'payment', Starfleet would share with them all information the Defiant discovered about the Dominion on its missions into the Gamma Quadrant. The deal also stipulated that the cloaking device was only to be used in the Gamma Quadrant. (DS9: "The Search, Part I") History Soon after its arrival at DS9, the Defiant entered the Gamma Quadrant, on a mission to open negotiations with the Founders of the Dominion. The starship came under attack by several Jem'Hadar ships and was boarded. The senior officers were taken to the Founders' homeworld and placed in a simulation by the Vorta, Borath. Once Odo and Kira Nerys found them, the Founders allowed them to return home. (DS9: "The Search, Part II") Several weeks later, the Defiant transported Jadzia Dax to Trill for treatment. (DS9: "Equilibrium") When Major Kira Nerys was abducted by the Obsidian Order, Sisko took the Defiant into Cardassian space. The ship's shield harmonics were reconfigured so that the ship appeared to be a Kobheerian freighter. (DS9: "Second Skin") During an exploration mission in the Gamma Quadrant the Defiant discovered the planet Meridian. (DS9: "Meridian") Later, the ship was stolen by members of the Maquis, lead by Thomas Riker, posing as his twin William Riker, who used it to attack several Cardassian targets. The ship was severely threatened by several Obsidian Order's ''Keldon''-class warships. Having narrowly escaped, it would be protected by the ''Galor''-class warship, Kraxon, until the Obsidian Order threat was nullified and for Riker to surrender to. Major Kira then took the Defiant to the Demilitarized Zone to rendezvous with another Federation starship to transfer the remainder of the Maquis for arrest. (DS9: "Defiant") The Defiant transported the senior staff of DS9 to Earth for a conference on the Gamma Quadrant. The Defiant was the ship chosen for a joint Federation-Cardassian-Bajoran project to send and receive messages to and from the Gamma Quadrant. (DS9: "Destiny") A few months later, Captain Benjamin Sisko, acting against orders and without the cloaking device, took the Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant again to rescue Odo and Elim Garak who were on a Romulan warbird fighting the Dominion during the Battle of the Omarion Nebula. (DS9: "The Die is Cast") In late 2371, the Defiant was sabotaged by a Founder, who attempted to start a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi by flying the Defiant into their space. (DS9: "The Adversary") The Defiant fought its way through Cardassian space to rescued members of the Cardassian Detapa Council in 2372 during the Second Federation-Klingon War. (DS9: "The Way of the Warrior") During a meeting with a Karemma ship the Defiant was forced into a planet's atmosphere by the Jem'Hadar where it was severely damaged and many of its crew injured. The Defiant was able to destroy the Jem'Hadar ships and rescue the Karemma. (DS9: "Starship Down") The Defiant, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Worf travelled to Earth to assist Captain Sisko in suppressing a plot that would seize control of Earth from the President of the Federation. The Defiant was attacked by the USS Lakota, who believed the ship's crew had been replaced by shapeshifters. Both ships were damaged but both stood down before either could be destroyed. (DS9: "Paradise Lost") After obtaining the detonation codes for a minefield the Klingons were deploying around the Bajoran system, the Defiant was used to detonate the entire minefield. (DS9: "Sons of Mogh") Finding life difficult aboard DS9 much different to that of a starship, Worf decided to live aboard the Defiant. (DS9: "Bar Association") Later that year, again under of the command of Worf, the Defiant was escorting several Cardassian freighters when they were attacked by the Klingons. The Defiant accidently destroyed a Klingon civilian tranport, that was later determined to be empty and a Klingon ruse to bring Worf back to Qo'noS. (DS9: "Rules of Engagement") The Defiant later followed a rebel Jem'Hadar strike team that had attacked DS9 into the Gamma Quadrant. After rescuing more Jem'Hadar from the rebels, the two crews worked together to destroy an Iconian gateway, that the rogue Jem'Hadar had captured. (DS9: "To the Death") Several weeks later, the Defiant took an ill Odo back to his people where he was 'judged' and changed into a solid. Elim Garak attempted to destroy the Great Link using the Defiant's weapons. He was stopped by Worf and sentenced to six months in a holding cell. (DS9: "Broken Link") Later, the Defiant captured a Jem'Hadar ship and brought it back to the Federation for study. (DS9: "The Ship") Several weeks later, the Defiant was transported to the 23rd century, where it encountered the Enterprise and its crew on a space station near the Federation-Klingon border. The crew stopped Arne Darvin, a disguised Klingon, from killing James T. Kirk with a bomb implanted in a tribble. (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations") While pursuing the Maquis traitor Michael Eddington, the Defiant was disabled by a cascade virus that Eddington had planted in its computer systems. The ship was towed back to Deep Space Nine by the USS Malinche. After the Maquis attacked the Malinche, Sisko took the damaged Defiant after Eddington and stopped after after poisoning a Maquis planet and threatening to poison more. (DS9: "For the Uniform") Several weeks later, the Defiant destroyed a runabout that had been stolen by a Founder and equipped with a bomb that was to be detonated in the Bajoran sun, thus destroying the entire system. (DS9: "By Inferno's Light") When Deep Space Five detected a Borg cube on a direct course for Earth, the Defiant, under the command of Worf, joined a Starfleet task force that was assembled in the Typhon sector to stop the cube. Unsuccessful in stopping the cube at Typhon, the task force fought a running battle with the Borg to Earth. Worf was about to order a suicide run against the cube but the Enterprise-E arrived. The Defiant began to lose life support and its crew were beamed aboard the Enterprise. The Defiant crew later travelled back in time with the Enterprise crew to the year 2063, following a Borg sphere that had changed the timeline. After stopping the Borg, the crew travelled back to 2373. The Defiant was repaired and returned to Deep Space Nine. (Star Trek: First Contact) After a salvage operation to Empok Nor went awry, the Defiant rescued O'Brien, Nog and Garak from the station. (DS9: "Empok Nor") In late 2373, the Defiant was used to deploy a minefield near the Bajoran wormhole to stop more Dominion ships from entering the Alpha Quadrant. After a Dominion attack and takeover of DS9, the Defiant evacuated all Federation citizens from the station. (DS9: "Call to Arms") The Dominion War The Defiant fought valiantly throughout the Dominion War and participated in the majority of its battles. In early 2374, the Defiant was assigned to operate out of Starbase 375. When Sisko was made Admiral Ross' assistant, Jadzia Dax was given command of the Defiant. She commanded the ship on a mission to destroy a Dominion sensor array in the Argolis Cluster. (DS9: "A Time to Stand", "Behind the Lines") The ship was used in Operation Return, to reclaim DS9 and stop the Dominion from the dismantling the minefield and bringing in its reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant. After failing to stop the Dominion from destroying the minefield, the Defiant entered the wormhole in a vain attempt to stop the Dominion reinforcements. Captain Sisko convinced the Prophets to intervene and they destroyed the Dominion ships and made the wormhole impassable to further attempts. (DS9: "Favor the Bold", "Sacrifice of Angels") Whilst en route to Gul Dukat's war crimes trial, the USS Kyushu was destroyed by the Cardassians. The Defiant and the USS Constellation spent many days searching. The Defiant was about to leave the area when Dukat sent a message to the ship, informing them of Sisko's location. Several months after the Federation retook DS9, the Defiant itself was captured by the Jem'Hadar on a scientific mission. The Defiant was reclaimed, with the help of a runabout that had been shrunk to only a few inches long. (DS9: "One Little Ship") Several weeks later the Defiant rescued the survivors of its sister ship the Valiant, that had been destroyed by the Dominion. (DS9: "Valiant") The Defiant participated in the First Battle of Chin'toka. The ship located and destroyed the power source for the Orbital weapon platform, thus helping the Federation Alliance to conquer the system. (DS9: "Tears of the Prophets") The Defiant spent the next several months on convoy duty in the system (DS9: "Image in the Sand"). The Defiant returned to the Chin'toka system several weeks later when it made a supply run to AR-558. (DS9: "The Siege of AR-558") After she was kidnapped and brought to Empok Nor, the Defiant rescued Kira and several members of the Pah-Wraith cult and brought them back to Bajor. (DS9: "Covenant") The Defiant's short but illustrious life ended during the Second Battle of Chin'toka, when the ship was disabled and destroyed by the Breen's energy dampening weapon. (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil") The USS Sao Paulo was renamed in honor of the Defiant, and it fought in the final battle of the Dominion War, the Battle of Cardassia. (DS9: "The Dogs of War", "What You Leave Behind") First Contacts * Founders, 2371 * Meridian, 2371 Command Crew * Captain Benjamin Sisko - commanding officer (CO) * Commander Worf - executive officer, security chief,tactical officer * Chief Miles O'Brien - chief engineer * Commander Jadzia Dax - CONN, science officer (2371-2374) *Ensign Nog- CONN (2375) * Doctor Julian Bashir - chief medical officer (CMO) Background information Early drafts of the script of Star Trek: First Contact suggested that the Defiant was to be destroyed in the Battle of Sector 001. In the DVD commentary for the film, First Contact co-writer and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine producer Ronald D. Moore said that Deep Space Nine's Executive Producer Ira Steven Behr had seen the script and objected to the needless destruction of his ship in a story that didn't even involve the Deep Space Nine characters (apart from Worf). It would also prove to be inconvenient for the television show, so the Defiant was eventually allowed to survive the battle, and a line suggesting that the Defiant was "adrift, but salvagable" was added to clear up any ambiguity. No reference to the damage the Defiant received during the battle was ever made on Deep Space Nine. An early design of the Defiant eventually became the Nova class ship, the USS Equinox. Appearances By Episode The Defiant appears in all episode title sequences season 4 and beyond (not at the beginning of season 3 however). * DS9: "The Search, Part I" * DS9: "The Search, Part II" * DS9: "Equilibrium" * DS9: "Second Skin" * DS9: "Meridian" * DS9: "''Defiant''" * DS9: "Past Tense, Part I" * DS9: "Past Tense, Part II" * DS9: "Destiny" * DS9: "The Die Is Cast" * DS9: "The Adversary" * DS9: "The Way of the Warrior" * DS9: "The Visitor" * DS9: "Rejoined" * DS9: "Starship Down" * DS9: "Our Man Bashir" * DS9: "Paradise Lost" * DS9: "Sons of Mogh" * DS9: "The Bar Association" * DS9: "Rules of Engagement" * DS9: "For the Cause" * DS9: "To the Death" * DS9: "Broken Link" * DS9: "The Ship" * DS9: "...Nor the Battle to the Strong" * DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations" * DS9: "The Ascent" * Star Trek: First Contact * DS9: "The Darkness and the Light" * DS9: "For the Uniform" * DS9: "In Purgatory's Shadow" * DS9: "By Inferno's Light" * DS9: "Soldiers of the Empire" * DS9: "Children of Time" * DS9: "Blaze of Glory" * DS9: "In the Cards" * DS9: "Call to Arms" * DS9: "A Time to Stand" * DS9: "Sons and Daughters" * DS9: "Behind the Lines" * DS9: "Favor the Bold" * DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels" * DS9: "You Are Cordially Invited..." * DS9: "The Magnificent Ferengi" * DS9: "Waltz" * DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars" * DS9: "One Little Ship" * DS9: "Honor Among Thieves" * DS9: "Inquisition" * DS9: "''Valiant''" * DS9: "Time's Orphan" * DS9: "The Sound of Her Voice" * DS9: "Tears of the Prophets" * DS9: "Image in the Sand" * DS9: "Once More Unto the Breach" * DS9: "The Siege of AR-558" * DS9: "Covenant" * DS9: "It's Only a Paper Moon" * DS9: "Prodigal Daughter" * DS9: "Field of Fire" * DS9: "Chimera" * DS9: "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" * DS9: "Penumbra" * DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil" See also * USS Defiant (NCC-1764) * USS Defiant (NCC-75633) External Links * The USS Defiant at Wikipedia Defiant (NX-74205) de:USS Defiant (NX-74205)